Gas tax theft and the debt bomb

WARNING: Reading this may cause you to want to kick the dog, pull your hair out, or wear a monkey mask to avoid paying tolls.

Okay, you’re going to need to count the number of exclamation points in this column to truly appreciate the state of fiscal affairs…

I’m baffled by anyone who still thinks Texas’ leaders are fiscally conservative after recent developments of the fiscal malfeasance relating to transportation being cranked up 20 notches! Yesterday we discovered the state’s estimated budget deficit is closer to $20 billion rather than $18 billion, but what you’re NOT hearing about is the BOATLOAD of debt for roads, a good 70% of it for toll roads, many of them failing and needing a bailout.

Road debt has reached unsustainable levels, at least $25 billion, bigger than the entire state’s current shortfalls. Seventeen billion on the state level and $8 billion off-loaded to a single toll entity in DFW and that’s not counting the other 8 RMAs nor the Harris County Toll Authority, the interest on the debt, nor the many local pass through finance deals, nor the $8 billion in future gas taxes being used as collateral for a single project in DFW, Hwy 161 (the road being built to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium).

It’s NUTS!

The interest on the state debt alone is $31 billion! It’s no wonder my Granddaddy always told us to pay CASH or it ain’t worth having. The cost to BORROW money is just plain too high! The draconian tax hikes that will be needed to pay back the interest on all this debt ought to be called the “pain” tax. Yet Texas state politicians continue to sink us into an unsustainable, borrow and spend debt hole…the very same politicians who call themselves “conservatives” and point fingers at the spending and debt happening in Washington.

Gas tax hike to pay for…DEBT?

Senator Steve Ogden just floated the hair-brained idea of a Constitutional Amendment to raise the gas tax, but not to actually build roads, rather to PAY OFF ROAD DEBT! These people have lost their ever-loving minds! Add to that the recent realization that only $700 million of TxDOT’s $16 billion two-year budget is actual CASH on hand. Oh wait, there’s more…if you haven’t lost your lunch yet, this one ought to do it.

In a recent legislative hearing on toll roads and how they’re being financed, it was revealed that TxDOT is spending $45 million to collect $60 million in tolls! So we’re spending 66% of toll revenues from the Central Texas Turnpike System on toll collection. That ought to set a world record in fiscal malfeasance and government WASTE! And this is just ONE state agency!

Taxpayer bank is BUSTED!

Yet all we hear from Rick Perry is how wonderful Texas is doing, financially, and how we’re NOT like California whose buried in a sea of debt asking the feds for a bailout. Oh yes we are…the taxpayers are already bailing out Perry’s FAILED toll road policies. The Legislative Budget Board has informed lawmakers that they CANNOT borrow any more money (but they could get out of jail free by raising taxes…that would give them the cashflow to bury us in more debt). That’s how dire the situation has become. They’ e maxed out OUR credit card, and, sadly, the voters just keep giving legislators their permission when they vote YES on these Constitutional Amendments that allow them to borrow and spend us into fiscal collapse.

SH 130, built with HEAPS of taxpayer money, attracts so little traffic that a distressed plane used it as a runway during RUSH HOUR! TxDOT’s CFO admitted that taxpayers will be bailing out SH 130 for the next 30 years. Even worse, TxDOT opened 45 SE as a toll road even though it was 100% paid for with gas taxes. Why? To pay off the debt on Austin’s toll system that’s losing money like a sieve! Robin Hood at its finest, a la Rick Perry!

How many of you know that those “managed” toll lanes they “added” to the Katy Freeway in Houston were also 100% paid for with gas taxes (except a small portion paid by the toll authority to connect the lanes to its toll road)? Why? UNADULTERATED GOVERNMENT GREED, brought to you by all those state lawmakers who claim to be “fiscal conservatives!” I’m willing to bet that they’re not making enough revenue on those lanes to even pay for the cost of running the toll equipment and collecting the tolls.

So all this nonsense Perry spouts “that those who don’t use the road, don’t have to pay for the road” is certifiable HOGWASH! Just like his claim that it’s illegal to convert existing roads into toll roads. Wanna bet? They did it in Austin, they’ve been trying to do it in San Antonio, and they plan to do it everywhere they can. The loopholes in the law tell TxDOT precisely how it can toll existing roads by converting the freeway MAIN LANES into toll lanes and making the frontage roads the non-toll option. That’s why they always talk about the number of lanes, not the TYPE of lanes when they tell you you’ll still have the same number of lanes as you did before they toll it.

You read that right, they can legally STEAL your FREEway, turn it into a toll road, leave you access roads as your only free lanes and tell you with a straight face that they haven’t converted your FREEway into a tollway!

But the story of the fiscal mess isn’t done yet…

Gas tax theft, lax enforcement

CBS 19 News in Tyler, TX, did an expose’ on Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples’ widespread lack of timely inspections of gas pumps. Staples’ opponent, Hank Gilbert, who helped establish TURF, found dozens of gas stations that have expired inspection stickers and/or are out of compliance, and he found many that had NEVER even been inspected EVER with NO sticker at all (meaning they’re NOT paying the state ANY gas tax revenues, they’re completely “off the grid” so to speak)! Hank even found one that hadn’t been inspected since Rick Perry was Agriculture Commissioner in 1997!

Such a shoddy inspection process potentially costs taxpayers millions in lost gas tax revenue badly needed to fix our roads and keep them FREEways. Staples, like Perry, seems all too happy to starve the gas tax so they can push TOLL ROADS, which cost the taxpayers 10-1,000 times more per mile than gas tax.

Get a load of this…at the exact same time Hank was holding a press conference to expose this neglect, someone from the Agriculture Department shows up across the street to FINALLY inspect the pump that hadn’t been inspected since 1997. He says those that aren’t licensed don’t get inspected and that there’s no mechanism in place for them to know if a station is unlicensed, so they essentially stay “off the grid” unless they get complaints about it. You bet Todd Staples heard complaints about this pump and rushed his guy out there to update those stickers (too bad for him Hank and the TV cameras were there, too!).

Okay, this is the last kick in the gut for today…

On top of all of the above, the toll collection nightmare is another area of fiscal bloodletting. In Austin, there are approximately 150,000 toll violators who haven’t paid up. KXAN-TV Austin investigated the mess and discovered there are only 7 Justice of the Peace courts to hear these cases. Even if they heard 5 a day (not likely since JP courts already have full dockets), 7 days a week (which won’t happen), it would take 11 YEARS to hear them all!

TxDOT has imposed hefty fines and even 4000% in administrative fees to some bills, with one woman being billed for over $11,000 in “administrative fees” with no one who could explain how they arrived at that figure. At one point, they increased the woman’s bill again right over the phone! The actual toll charges on the bill came to $358 and the remaining $11,142 was what you might call “gravy.” Of the 150,000 toll violators who owe the state money, the actual unpaid tolls come to $3.2 million, yet with all the fees and fines the total pricetag comes to a whopping $56 million!

So if this is Texas lawmakers version of fiscal “responsibility” and fiscal “conservatism,” let’s have none of it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Well, it’s INSANITY to re-elect these people. If we don’t throw the bums out, then we deserve what’s coming…

So did anyone count the exclamation points? It’s easy compared to calculating the zeros on the toll road tab to taxpayers.